“Enforcing Ecology: Geographies of the Cattle Fever Tick”
Journal of the Southwest 62(4)
Winter 2020
“From the eradication period to the contemporary moment of concern, tick fever changed in popular understanding from an endogenous affliction, a natural part of the landscape, to an invasive threat from Mexico. This was made possible by producing the U.S.-Mexico border as an ecological line, and using the border’s two functions to reinforce one another. Reading tick science and eradication-related agency documents from 1884 to the present, this article traces how the ‘fever
line,’ at first determined climatically as the area above which there wer fewer than 200 frost-free days, was made congruent with the U.S.-Mexico border, and how that border fever line both enabled and was reinforced by metaphors used to describe the disease. Applying the language of
quarantine to ecology transformed a porous and shifting isotherm into a bright-line border, in turn enabling the rhetoric of “threat,” ‘illegality,’ ‘vigilance,’ and ‘invasion’ now used to justify wall building.”
Journal of the Southwest 62(4)
Winter 2020
“From the eradication period to the contemporary moment of concern, tick fever changed in popular understanding from an endogenous affliction, a natural part of the landscape, to an invasive threat from Mexico. This was made possible by producing the U.S.-Mexico border as an ecological line, and using the border’s two functions to reinforce one another. Reading tick science and eradication-related agency documents from 1884 to the present, this article traces how the ‘fever
line,’ at first determined climatically as the area above which there wer fewer than 200 frost-free days, was made congruent with the U.S.-Mexico border, and how that border fever line both enabled and was reinforced by metaphors used to describe the disease. Applying the language of
quarantine to ecology transformed a porous and shifting isotherm into a bright-line border, in turn enabling the rhetoric of “threat,” ‘illegality,’ ‘vigilance,’ and ‘invasion’ now used to justify wall building.”
Caroline Eaton Tracey writes about art, literature, environment, and migration in the US Southwest, Mexico, and the borderlands between the two. She speaks and works in English, Spanish, and Russian.
Currently, Caroline is the Climate Justice Fellow at the High Country News and an editor-at-large Zócalo Public Square. Her reporting appears in n+1, the Atlantic, the Nation, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos. Her reportage about migrant death in South Texas won the 2019 Scoundrel Time/Summer Literary Seminars nonfiction contest, and she was recently awarded the 2022 Waterston Prize for Desert Writing.
Caroline’s personal essays appear in the Kenyon Review Online, Full Stop, New South, and elsewhere. “A River Passes By Here” was runner-up in the 2020 Financial Times/Bodley Head essay contest and “The Ephemeral Forever” won Ruminate Magazine’s 2021 VanderMey Nonfiction Contest. Her art writing has appeared in Nexos, Variable West, SFMOMA’s Open Space, and Burlington Contemporary.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is currently seeking representation for her manuscript SALT LAKES, which combines personal narrative, ekphrasis, and scientific writing to provide a new, queer perspective on climate change in arid environments, and preparing a book proposal about the effects of US border and migration policy in Mexico.
Ask her about sugar beets.
Currently, Caroline is the Climate Justice Fellow at the High Country News and an editor-at-large Zócalo Public Square. Her reporting appears in n+1, the Atlantic, the Nation, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos. Her reportage about migrant death in South Texas won the 2019 Scoundrel Time/Summer Literary Seminars nonfiction contest, and she was recently awarded the 2022 Waterston Prize for Desert Writing.
Caroline’s personal essays appear in the Kenyon Review Online, Full Stop, New South, and elsewhere. “A River Passes By Here” was runner-up in the 2020 Financial Times/Bodley Head essay contest and “The Ephemeral Forever” won Ruminate Magazine’s 2021 VanderMey Nonfiction Contest. Her art writing has appeared in Nexos, Variable West, SFMOMA’s Open Space, and Burlington Contemporary.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is currently seeking representation for her manuscript SALT LAKES, which combines personal narrative, ekphrasis, and scientific writing to provide a new, queer perspective on climate change in arid environments, and preparing a book proposal about the effects of US border and migration policy in Mexico.
Ask her about sugar beets.
Caroline Eaton Tracey escribe sobre el arte, la literatura, el medioambiente y la migración en México, el Suroeste de Estados Unidos y la frontera entre ellos. Habla ingles, español y ruso.
Actualmente, Caroline cubre justicia climática para la revista High Country News y colabora como editora en Zócalo Public Square. Sus artículos aparecen en n+1, The Nation y The Atlantic, entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente sobre la frontera norte para Nexos. En 2019, un artículo suyo sobre el fallecimiento de migrantes en el desierto del sur de Texas ganó el premio de no ficción de Scoundrel Time/Summer Literary Seminars, y in 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto.
Sus ensayos aparecen en Kenyon Review Online, Full Stop y New South, entre otros lugares. “Aquí Pasa Un Río” ganó segundo lugar en el premio de ensayo Financial Times/Bodley Head de 2020; en 2021 “Lo Efímero, Para Siempre” ganó el concurso de no-ficción VanderMey de Ruminate Magazine. Sus reseñas y ensayos sobre el arte han aparecido en Nexos, Variable West, Open Space (plataforma del Museo de Arte Moderno de San Francisco) y Burlington Contemporary.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
Actualmente está buscando publicar su manuscrito de no-ficción lírica sobre lagos salados y preparando una propuesta para un libro sobre los efectos de la política migratoria/fronteriza de Estados Unidos en México.
Pregúntale sobre betabeles.
Actualmente, Caroline cubre justicia climática para la revista High Country News y colabora como editora en Zócalo Public Square. Sus artículos aparecen en n+1, The Nation y The Atlantic, entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente sobre la frontera norte para Nexos. En 2019, un artículo suyo sobre el fallecimiento de migrantes en el desierto del sur de Texas ganó el premio de no ficción de Scoundrel Time/Summer Literary Seminars, y in 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto.
Sus ensayos aparecen en Kenyon Review Online, Full Stop y New South, entre otros lugares. “Aquí Pasa Un Río” ganó segundo lugar en el premio de ensayo Financial Times/Bodley Head de 2020; en 2021 “Lo Efímero, Para Siempre” ganó el concurso de no-ficción VanderMey de Ruminate Magazine. Sus reseñas y ensayos sobre el arte han aparecido en Nexos, Variable West, Open Space (plataforma del Museo de Arte Moderno de San Francisco) y Burlington Contemporary.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
Actualmente está buscando publicar su manuscrito de no-ficción lírica sobre lagos salados y preparando una propuesta para un libro sobre los efectos de la política migratoria/fronteriza de Estados Unidos en México.
Pregúntale sobre betabeles.